Crack Hits Chicago, Along With a Wave of Killing

By ISABEL WILKERSON,

Published: September 24, 1991

CHICAGO, Sept. 23—
For most of the 1980's, street gangs kept crack out of Chicago, fearing that it could open the way for small dealers to challenge their control of the drug trade. Now crack has arrived and those same gangs are warring over territory.

With the eruption of the same kind of turf wars that marked the arrival of crack in Washington and elsewhere, 1991 is shaping into the deadliest year in Chicago history, surpassing the rate during the bloody years of the Al Capone era and even the record year of 1974, when 970 residents were killed.

By the end of August, Chicago had recorded 623 murders, as against 593 by that date in 1974. The city declared last month the deadliest ever with 120 killings, more than the previous record of 117 in November 1974. As of today, the 1991 toll is 686.

"It's out of control," said Frances Sandoval, president of the Chicago chapter of Mothers Against Gangs, a support and advocacy group. "People are in agony. People are being held hostage in their own neighborhoods. One mother said to me: 'What do we have to do? Do we have to get on our knees to stop this?' "

The problem has pitted alderman against alderman and community leaders against the police superintendent. It has touched off neighborhood marches and candlelight vigils and even prompted Mayor Richard M. Daley, out of frustration after a security guard was killed in sniper fire at a public housing project last month, to liken Chicago to Colombia.

The Mayor has also gotten political heat over the killings, partly because of his unfulfilled campaign promise last spring to hire 600 police officers. South Side Hit Hard

Unlike drug distribution networks in New York, Washington and other cities with fairly diffuse trafficking systems, the network in Chicago has traditionally been tightly run by a group of major street gangs who enjoyed a longstanding monopoly on drug sales and were not inclined to introduce or -- allow anyone else to introduce -- a volatile new product they could not easily control, criminologists say.

"Everybody had their share of the market and there was just not room for entrepreneurs to get in like in New York," said Dr. Jeffrey Fagan, an associate professor of criminal justice at Rutgers University, who has studied the evolution of crack in this country. "Distributors acted like every other business and kept out the product. The fear in Chicago was that once the taste got out, it would be extremely difficult to control."

The pact between street gangs, whether formal or tacit, made it more difficult for small-time outsiders to infiltrate the market with crack, a drug that lends itself to independent sales because customers make more frequent purchases of smaller amounts than they do with other drugs. But the agreement did not keep it out for good. No one is certain who was the first to bring crack into Chicago, but now that it has arrived, distributors large and small are angling for their slice. 'More Active Market'

"What this did was create a more active market," said Ronald Allen, a professor of law at Northwestern University. "There is more money changing hands. Dealers want to get in on the market and want to get a bigger share of the market. But rather than cutting prices and putting out a better product, they kill each other."

The violence is taking its greatest toll on the South Side community of Englewood, a jumble of worn two-family apartment buildings and burned out apartment buildings, where 71 people have been killed so far this year, higher than the annual murder toll in many American cities.

There, 40 percent of all homicides are tied to drugs or gangs and the percentage of drug arrests at which crack is confiscated has gone from zero to 70 percent in two years, said Comdr. Ron Watson of the city's Seventh District.

The city deployed 100 additional police officers to Englewood over the summer, and it seems even now that every other car on Halsted or Racine Avenues is a police cruiser. The police have made 3,000 arrests since early August and confiscated 379 guns. Still, residents say they are afraid to go out after dusk or dawdle on street corners.

"No way, shape or form do I go out at night," said Andrew Allen, a retired postal worker and longtime resident. "It's the worst I've ever seen it. Just going out at night to get something, I can't tell you when I last did that. If I ain't got it by nightfall, I don't get it."

Residents who had only read about crack or watched movies about it are now living the nightmare themselves. They are adjusting to sight of discarded crack vials and ominous gatherings of drug buyers and sellers on street corners.

"We're at the zenith of this murder situation," said Cecil Davis, who coordinates citizen patrols in Englewood. "People are worried about who's next and 'How close is it going to be to me?' "

People have become so afraid that it has become difficult to get them to report what they see.

James O. Stampley, executive director of the Englewood Economic Development Corporation, a local civic group, said he and others had watched helplessly as more and more fellow residents were robbed on buses or otherwise victimized by the violence.

At the core of much of the violence is the new and expanding market for the highly addictive drug here and and the turf wars it has set off, community leaders and several ranking members of the Police Department said.

The headlines and handwringing have produced a minor political crisis for Mayor Daley, who promised to hire 600 police officers during his election campaign last spring. But the officers have not yet materialized, the mayor's office has said, because of delays created by a change in the entrance examination for police recruits. Still, aldermen whose wards have been hardest hit are blaming the Mayor for inaction.

The Mayor has deflected such criticism by saying that the real problem is the failure courts to put criminals away and the failure of the Federal Government to stop drugs from entering the country in the first place.

The Mayor is promising new police officers by November. But LeRoy Martin, the police superintendent who has been the focus of the most vehement criticism in the crisis, has said that with the proliferation of guns and a gang culture, that new police recruits may not be enough.

"You can give me 2,000 police officers," he said at a City Council hearing last week, "and you can see them walking and talking. But until you start addressing the root causes, we'll be living with this high crime."

Photo: In the community of Englewood on Chicago's South Side, 71 people have been killed so far this year. Comdr. Ron Watson, center, deploying two of his tactical officers, K. Warner, left, and Sgt. J. Sandifer in Englewood. (Charlie Schabes for The New York Times) (pg. A22) Graph: "Murders in Chicago" shows the number of homicide deaths per year from '75-'91. (Source: Chicago Police Department) (pg. A22)